


A Tale of the Tape

by Missy



Category: Kid-TV series - Barbara Adams
Genre: F/M, First Relationship, Food Fight, High School, Humor, Mischief, Miscommunication, School Dances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2233086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minnie's finally a junior at Wellsburg High!  Along with the rest of Kid-TV's original staff, she's still on the air - but will she stay  there when she gets blamed for a segment that pits the girls and guys of Wellsburg against each other just in time for the big Valentine's Day dance?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale of the Tape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seekingferret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/gifts).



> I had so much fun revisiting this series! Kid-Tv was THE novel series for me when I was nine or so. Hope you enjoy.

“Minnie!!” Oh no, not today not today! I shrank down a little bit in my seat and hoped Mister Gordon would skip over me, but it was too late; he was sitting on his desk, his textbook spread across his knee in a full on Cary Grant impersonation. “Minnie, would you tell us why you think Willa Cather had Antonia marry somebody other than Willie?”

Ugh, no, I read the wrong chapter last night I read the one before it and I can’t even remember who Willie is forget about telling people what he wants or who he wants. I sat up a little taller, and crossed my hands before me. 

“Because,” I said, “as symbolized by Cather’s focus on wheat, Willie’s feelings for Antonia were golden, grew during the summer, and got chopped down when they were young and vital.” 

For the first time in my life I really hoped my answer was enough to squirm out of further and closer inspection. All I could think of was the wheat. Willa Cather really loved wheat; there were paragraphs on paragraphs that described how tall it could grow, and how pretty it would shine in the sunlight. For the first time in my life I felt like I couldn’t connect with a book’s true character.

But Mister Gordon gave my words more weight than I’d hoped he would. “Very thoughtful, Miss O’Reilly,” he said, scratching his chin. “Very thoughtful.”

I smiled weakly and sat back in my chair as he moved on to another point. Can you believe it? Me, Minnie O’Reilly, good, old, dependable, hard-working me, couldn’t remember what Willa Cather was going on about when she talked about love. I guess it’s fitting. I don’t think I know too much about love myself, but everyone keeps coming to me for advice about it. Which is why I messed up my reading assignment, and why I’m trying as hard as I can not to make eye contact with any of my fellow seatmates.

It’s a long story. Let me take you back…

*** 

It all started last week. We were at the last production meeting for Kid-TV before winter break. We go on the air once a week every single Friday, and we cover everything that’s happened at school over the week, including sports and weather reports. We talk about local politics and the biggest stories running nationally, too – and to tell the truth, it’s a lot more fun letting people in on the tough times going on all over the world than how high they’re going to hike up prices in the cafeteria. As for telethons (yikes, I still gets hives whenever I say the ‘telethon’ word), we hadn’t been forced to put another one on. Yet. You never know after all. 

The difference between being a staff assistant and a senior producer is pretty huge; I’m in charge of deciding what we’re going to cover, then directing most of the footage we shoot and putting all the show’s segments in the right order and making sure they ‘go to tape’ (that means air) from the live broadcast in the right order with our editors. Keeping order’s always been what I’m really good at - which is probably why I’m so good at science and biology. Words can be cut up and placed in any kind of order you want them to be, but anatomy is ruled by physics law. You can’t put your head where your elbow belongs, and you can’t put a cooking segment after a story about the troubles happening down in Iran.

This week’s been longer than normal in the development department. Kathy’s trying to extend her sportscast in light of the Cougars going all the way in the finals in the state volleyball tournament, and I’m trying to make sure Willow gets in her cooking segment. Everything’s about balance; if I have to let Muffin go on a little bit longer than normal with her Ms. Lonelyhearts segment, then I have to shift everything else around to accommodate that. It’s about figuring out what’s important and minimizing what isn’t. 

That’s when the idea bubbled up like a hot spring, or a bad case of gas, and popped out of Willow’s mouth. “Why don’t you do a segment, Millie?” she asked me. I turned white at the very idea. 

“Oh no, no thank you – I think I’m better just hanging out behind the scenes.”

It was the easiest way out. No matter how many ideas I got from Jamie, or whoever tried to nudge me forward, I stayed safely behind the camera, away from the danger of being on-camera.

“Which is why you’re perfect for my idea.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Why don’t we study the dating habits of the average Westbergian?” Willow asked. “Find out why boys like girls and girls like boys.” Willow had gotten so boy-crazy after her first date with Vinny.

“Not all boys like all girls.” Susan pointed out.

“Susan’s right, and I’m not interested,” I said, waving my hand in dismissal while trying to shove a bit of bagel into my mouth. “We just survived the winter formal, and the last thing I want to do is think about is romance.” In my case I survived it quite literally. I never want to see another nest of bees as long as I live.

“But that’s what everybody else is doing! I know three people who’re planning on dumping whoever they’re dating, at least one maybe-hookup in the bathroom at Fridas, and somebody who’s pretending to see the nurse’s resusci-annie,” said Kathy, scissoring her fingers together. “Which means Kid-TV needs to put out a special about how people date nowadays.”

I squinted at her, completely confused. “But that’s easy to figure out. The way they always have. They go to the mall, they go to Fay’s, they sit next to each other during Principal Balkan‘s long assemblies…ugh, John, back me up! You’d know!” 

John was still dating Heather, our school songbird, but romance hadn’t given him confidence, “well…..” he stammered, tugging at his collar.

I shrugged, knowing Mister Shy wouldn’t bail me out. “Fine. Who wants to take it?” A ripple of confusion passed over the staff. The answer was no, and I knew it even before I buried my face between my palms.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll pencil it in.”

I tried to shuffle the idea low in the pile but Jamie shuffled it to the top, and before I could blink I found myself interviewing people during lunch the next Monday.

Lunchtime is, by the way, the worst possible time to interview somebody. People are so busy trying to gobble their food down before the bell rings that everything they say comes out in a confused, globby, inaudible mess. But I made a circle of the cafeteria to talk to people at every single table I’d missed out on eating my own lunch, had milk and pudding spilled into my shoes and I got egg salad spat on me twice.

I interviewed the crew last, to make sure we ended up with a fair and balanced look at love. Kathy and Muffin were the most straightforward, Willow and Jamie were all right but not quite as revealing as I needed, John was his typical helpless self, and Billy was a nervous mess.

“By my calculations,” Billy said, “the pompitous of love is an incalculable thing.”

“No duh,” I said, envisioning the piles of pizza and thick milkshakes I’d eat at Fay’s after school.

He smiled at me awkwardly. “Did I sound all right? Do you need to do another take?”

I shook my head. “You’re fine,” I said, flipping off the camera and stuffing it into my purse. I remembered fondly when portable cameras were twenty pounds and burned hot to the touch when you used them; to quote Billy himself, technology was cool and getting cooler. “See you in chem!”

“Uh, Minnie!” he babbled nervously when I turned to walk away. “Do you have a date for the Valentine’s Day dance?”

“Nope. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go.” I’d been planning on doing stuff in an “official capacity” for the yearbook and the show - mostly taking footage of the dance for use on the Monday broadcast. 

“Oh, well…I was wondering if perhaps,” he began, tugging on his collar, “would you be interested in attending with me?” 

I went still. Stiller than a statue. _Billy Wells_ , some small part of my mind spoke up. _This is Billy Wells, R.Z.’s nephew! And he’s asking you out!_ Then I finally forced myself to talk. “I don’t see why not?” It was a question mark and it made him blush. So I got a bit more affirmative. “Sure!” Then, “should I bring anything?”

“Just a ride,” he said. “My father won’t let me drive while I’m UTIM.” 

“UTIM?”

“Under the influence of the media,” he said.

*** 

“…So are you going to do it?” wondered Jamie. We were sitting together after school in the editing bay with my footage, trying to piece together a story for Monday morning. 

“Sure,” I said. “Billy’s a nice guy, and I needed to go to the dance anyway.”

“Gee, that’s romantic,” said Jamie. 

“It’s hard to be romantic and ambitious at the same time, Jamie, everyone knows that,” I said. “If you think this is ready I’m gonna lock the print and then go get us the biggest pizza I can find.”

Jamie nodded. “I’m fine with it.” 

“All right.” After a few quick gestures we had a complete and edited VHS print for Monday’s show. I fondly patted the tape on ejection. “Now all we need is to tuck it into the storage locker. Did Mister Smith leave the key with you?”

“Nope,” she said. “He said that somebody on the staff had to work late – I thought he meant you.”

“Nope – he meant me,” said Dave from the doorway. “Hello ladies.”

I groaned. Dave Madison, our publicity guy, was great at the advertising game, but he loved sensationalizing things. He’s probably destined for a nice job on Madison Avenue. Or with Hard Copy. Or for a heart attack at thirty.

“Dave,” I said, “do you solemnly swear just to hold on to this tape, and not to edit it in any way?”

“I swear,” he said.

Jamie and I exchanged worried looks. “On your copy of Wal-Street Weekly?”

“YES,” he said, rolling his eyes. 

I handed it over reluctantly. “Just lock it up in the studio and it’ll be ready to be played on Monday morning.” Jamie and I ran off to meet Willow at Fay’s, leaving our piece in Dave’s hands.

*** 

But with Monday came the predictable – well to everybody but me. Let’s just say that a hard-hitting pieces about how every single person at Westberg hates everybody else in their dating pool with selectively sweetened audio don’t go over well with their target audiences.

The hallways were a total warzone, and thanks to Dave’s editing, everybody automatically blamed me. I was so stressed out that I couldn’t study for my Cather final, which led to the mess in AP English. 

Not even a cheese pizza can fix this mess.

I just hope the dance doesn’t go as badly as I think it will.

*** 

Even I had to admit that the Valentine’s Day dance was a pretty fancy affair; our planning committee even dragged out whatever fake snow they could find left over from the winter formal in the storage closet, and spent days cutting elaborate hearts and cupids, which hung from the ceiling. I wore the nicest dress I had (because spending the entire week playing Artful Dodger meant being too distracted to think of shopping) and hung near the back door, hoping to avoid notice. It was silly worry - people were avoiding me and my camera anyway. And one another. The boys were standing on one end of the gym and the girls were standing at the other, and everyone kept ignoring everybody else to the tune of somebody’s Celine Dion tapes.

To my surprise, Billy didn’t cancel our date and he didn’t mind being seen with me. Instead, he kept bringing me cups of punch and dancing right next to me. I couldn’t dance. I was squinting through a camera lens.

Right before the clock struck nine, Mr. Balkan found the microphone, forcing everyone to turn their attention to the stage. The last thing we wanted was a speech, but boy was he determined to give us one. 

I tuned him out automatically, and the next thing I knew he was wrapping his statement up. Two janitors rolled a very large, cloth-wrapped object out from the kitchen behind him. “…And I’m hoping,” said The Balk, “that the student body will take this twenty pound chocolate fountain as a sign of goodwill!” 

Sure enough, the janitors stood back, showing off the fountain with outstretched hands and the muffled oohs and awws of the watching kids. It was then rolled down the side stairs and put to rest beside the other refreshments. After a little bit of fiddling, their fountain spewed forth a river of melted chocolate, and The Balk stood back and smiled proudly at his achievement. 

There’ve been worse attempts at bringing a bunch of angry kids together. This attempt worked for five minutes before an angry Kathy charged toward the vat, stuck her baseball cap under the stream and poured the chocolate over Lennie’s face. It was a free-for all after that, and I could barely keep myself clean or my camera from getting dunked.

And you know what? That whole time Billy was there trying to protect me, the footage, and the gym at large. By the time order was restored and everyone could laugh at their mistakes, he’d taken a chocolate-covered Twinkie right to the breast pocket of his suit. That’s the kind of bravery I can appreciate. Later on, as I sat on the bleachers holding Billy’s hand while Principal Balkan tried to kill the power to the chocolate fountain and the rest of the dance went screwy around us, even I, Minnie O’Reilly, felt a weird sense of peace. Who knew what lay ahead? 

He gave me a nervous grin and blushed, so I rested my head on his shoulder. And then, you guys, you won’t believe what happened. He leaned close to me and whispered something in my ear.

Only I couldn’t hear it over the sound of everybody yelling, so I said, “huh?”

“There’s a piece of Snickers in your hair,” he repeated, giving me a look of sickeningly sweet affection.

All right, so I guess this isn’t going to be the sort of romance Willa Cather would approve of. But I bet it’s going to be something even greater Just you wait and see.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses characters from **The Kid TV Series** , all of whom are the property of **Barbara Adams and Yearling Books**. No money was gained from the writing of this fanfiction and all are used under the strictures of of the Berne Convention.


End file.
